Hospitals typically use severity of illness scores to predict the 30-day survival of intensive care unit (ICU) patients. The scores include lab results, vital signs, and physiological and demographic characteristics. But research from the University of Waterloo also found sentiments in the nursing notes was a good indicator of whether ICU patients would survive. The Ontario researchers explain this sentiment analysis provided a noticeable improvement for predicting 30-day mortality. Specifically, they found a clear difference between the patients with the most positive messages who experienced the highest survival rates and the patients with the most negative messages who experienced the lowest survival rates. The research points out these nurse notes might also be used to predict readmission, or recovery from infection while in the ICU.
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